"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland,
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island,
Who rules the World-Island and the various Choke points commands the world"
"Force does not reveal to the victim the strength of his adversary,it invests the victims with patience"
Honesty, integrity, ethics, morality, Truth just might be a more effective path to real Justice.
USA is yet much too drunk of its own illusions to see the writings on the walls Worldwide.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Rumors of a massive draw down by end of next summer from Afghanistan.....

Rumors of a massive draw down by end of next summer from Afghanistan.....

NATO recently literally shot itself in the foot, imperiling the resupply of International Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan by shooting up two Pakistani border posts in a “hot pursuit’ raid.

Given that roughly 100 fuel tanker trucks along with 200 other trucks loaded with NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan each day from Pakistan, Pakistan’s closure of the border has ominous long-term consequences for the logistical resupply of ISAF forces, even as Pentagon officials downplay the issue and scramble for alternative resupply routes.

Pakistan, long angry about ISAF/NATO cross border raids, has apparently reached the end of its tether. Following the 26 November NATO aerial assault on two border posts in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan’s turbulent NorthWest Frontier Province, Islamabad promptly sealed its border with Afghanistan to NATO supplies after the allied strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The U.S. military insists a joint patrol with Afghan forces was fired upon first and only responded with return fire and calling in airstrikes on the posts, which a commander mistakenly identified as Taliban training camps, after reportedly checking that there were no Pakistani military forces nearby. Pakistan Major General Ishfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, rebutted Washington’s assertions one by one, commenting, "The positions of the posts were already conveyed to the ISAF through map references and it was impossible that they did not know these to be our posts."

So, what does this mean for logistical support of ISAF forces? According to Nesar Ahmad Nasery, the deputy head of Torkham Customs, around 1,000 trucks cross into Afghanistan on a daily basis, nearly 300 of which are NATO contractors carrying NATO supplies in sealed containers. Khyber Transport Association chief Shakir Afridi said that each oil tanker has a capacity of 13,000-15,000 gallons. In October 2010 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said that fossil fuels are the number one import to Afghanistan.

Noting the obvious, as Afghanistan has no indigenous hydrocarbon supplies, every drop must be brought in, with transit greatly increasing the eventual cost. For 2001-2008, almost all U.S. and NATO supplies were trucked overland to Afghanistan through parts of Pakistan effectively controlled by the Taliban.

Ground supplies are shipped into Pakistan’s Arabian Sea Karachi port and offloaded onto trucks before being sent to one of five crossing points on the Afghan border, the most important being Torkham at the Khyber Pass and Baluchistan’s Chaman. The recent attack has put all these routes at risk, perhaps permanently. Pakistan, being the shortest and most economical route, has been used for nearly a decade to transit almost 75 percent of the ammunition, vehicles, foodstuff and around 50 percent of fuel for coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.

On 27 November Interior Minister Rehman Malik, addressing journalists at the Ministry of the Interior’s National Crisis Management Cell, after strongly condemning the NATO attack on Pakistani forces, stated that the resupply routes for NATO via Pakistan have been stopped “permanently,” adding that the decisions of the Defense Cabinet Committee (DCC) on the NATO forces attack inside Pakistan would be implemented in letter and spirit, stressing that "The decisions of the DCC are final and would be implemented."

The major issue at stake here for ISAF and U.S. forces is fuel, all of which must be brought in from abroad at high cost. In October 2009 Pentagon officials testified before the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that the "Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel" (FBCF) translates to about $400 per gallon by the time it arrives at a remote Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Afghanistan. Last year, the FBCF reached $800 in some FOBs following supply route bombings in Pakistan, while others have claimed the FBCF may be as high as $1,000 per gallon in some remote locations. For many remote locations, fuel supplies can only be provided by air - one of the most expensive ways being in helicopter fuel bladders.

The majority of U.S. tonnage transported into Afghanistan is fuel - 70 percent, according to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Alan Haggerty. The Marines' calculate that 39 percent of their tonnage is fuel, and 90 percent is either fuel or water.

According to ISAF spokesman Colonel Wayne Shanks, there are currently nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, ranging from the massive Bagram airbase outside Kabul down to camps, forward operating bases and combat outposts.

The Pakistani supply lines have come under increasing attack by militants. Baluchistan Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durani noted that last year, 136 NATO tankers were destroyed in 56 attacks in the province, with 34 people killed and 23 wounded in the assaults.

But NATO and the Pentagon have a backup plan – since 2009 they have been shifting their logistics to the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a railway link running from Latvia’s Riga Baltic port through Russia and Kazakhstan terminating in Uzbekistan’s Termez on the Afghan border.

The NDN is a joint initiative of multiple Department of Defense agencies, including the US Transportation Command, CENTCOM, the US European Command, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Department of State. The NDN’s first shipment was sent on 20 February 2009 from Riga 3,212 miles to Termez, with U.S. commanders stating that 100 containers daily would be transported via the NDN. The supply trains have been given preferential right-of-way to speed the trip to about nine days. According to Pentagon officials, its goal is eventually to be able to bring 75 percent of its equipment into Afghanistan from the north.

But the true number of forces to be resupplied is far higher. Last year the Pentagon's Central Command put the number of contractors for the U.S. military at 107,000.

According to ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Gregory Keeley in Kabul, the NDN now accounts for 52 percent of coalition cargo transport and 40 percent for the U.S., which also receives around 30 percent of its supplies by air.

Cost?

According to the FMN Logistics, the Washington DC-based logistics company that oversees the NDN and provides “full supply-chain management to ensure the smooth transit of(European Union) government cargo from various Ports of Entry including Riga, Latvia;Poti, Georgia; Mersin, Turkey and Bandar Abbas, Iran, through to multiple NATO/ ISAF camps in North and South Afghanistan,” in January Russian Railways increased rail tariffs for freight by 10 percent and is suggesting an additional increase of 11.7 percent in 2011 to cover “operating costs.” Further east, Uzbekistan increased rail tariffs twice last year.

Bringing supplies overland on the NDN costs two or three times as much as shipping them by sea and moving them up through Pakistan.

And the NDN is not without problems of its own. On 16 November Uzbek media reported an explosion on an NDN railway line on a railway bridge on the Galaba-Amuzang section of track on Uzbekistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Besides the NDN, the Pentagon also uses a supply route through Georgia’s Black Sea Poti port via Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, where goods are transshipped across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where the goods are carried by truck into Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. While shorter than the NDN, it is also more expensive because of the constant on-and-off loading from trucks to ferries and back onto trucks. A third supply route, a spur of the NDN, bypasses Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan via Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but poor road conditions in Tajikistan limit its usefulness.

So, given Pakistan’s shutdown, can the NDN absorb the increased railway traffic?

Probably, but it won’t be cheap, and will take some time to implement.

NATO’s investigation of the Mohmand attack, led by a one-star general, will release its findings on 23 December. What does Pakistan want to resolve the issue? A formal apology and resolute action taken against those responsible for the deadly cross border air strike.

The U.S. military's Transportation Command deputy commander Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek said of resupplying Afghanistan, "This is the logistics challenge of our generation."

If the Pentagon does not issue an apology, then the U.S. military had better expect “the logistics challenge of our generation” to continue.

Or get out and push and push the HUMVEES and helicopters.

By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

[According to the following report, the US is offering to arm both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (perhaps Turkmenistan, as well) with leftover US armaments, after the 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan. This relocation of resources from Afghan to Central Asian theaters of operation is intended to both lighten the load of equipment removal from Afghanistan and to give former Soviet states a military edge of Russian forces equipped with outdated Soviet armaments.

In addition, this report raises questions about alleged US bases that are to be constructed somewhere in this former Soviet space .... Even though American diplomats and military sources have categorically denied that the US intends to build new bases in Central Asia, they have already constructed special forces training facilities in several of the Stans, with upcoming plans for more. According to this Tajik site, Asia Plus, these facilities are all due to receive additional upgrades and add-ons which will effectively turn them into miniature US bases--]

“U.S. Central Command plans to conduct several follow-on projects at the Training Center, such as building living quarters, a dining facility, a medical clinic, administrative buildings, and classrooms. Additional construction will include fences, lighting, parking lots, and access roads to allow year-round training.”

[And this--]

“This is the latest U.S.-sponsored project that supports Tajikistan’s counter narcotics and border security efforts. Other projects include building border crossing point facilities and border guard outposts along the Tajik-Afghan border and providing radios, vehicles, and personal equipment. U.S. Central Command counternarcotics, the United States Export Control and Border Security, and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement programs have provided facilities, equipment, and training for National Guard, Border Guards, Drug Control Agency, police, and customs officials throughout Tajikistan.”

Countries in the region agree to the appearance in its territory of U.S. military bases....

Gen. Vincent Brooks found a common language with the Tajik Chief of Staff Ramil Nadyrovym.

The Russian leadership seriously concerned about the fate of surplus weapons that are free of charge, may enter into the countries of Central Asia (CA) following the withdrawal in 2014 from Afghanistan, NATO troops. There is a strong likelihood that the supply of significant quantities of weapons to Central Asian countries, many of which are superior to the Russian, will allow these countries to strengthen and modernize its army. At the same time this will weaken the Afghan armed forces, which could affect stability in the territory of CIS countries. Russia concerned by the fact that NATO and U.S. bases in the first place, may still remain in Afghanistan, and secondly, Moscow fears that they will appear after 2014 and in Central Asia.

“We have serious questions, how the plans to reduce the number of American troops combined with the strengthening of its military infrastructure by Washington in Afghanistan,” – said on Friday Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich. The diplomat stressed that the reduction of foreign military presence in Afghanistan must be accompanied by adequate measures to combat potential of building the Afghan National Army and Police so that they can do to provide security in the country.

In this situation Moscow is more concerned with the fact that the weapons and military equipment, which are now in Afghanistan, will be transferred to the Central Asian countries. Yet it is precisely such a scenario, it seems, are trying to play in the post-American.

This will cause significant damage to the interests of Russia, which still has a long-term plans of the military and military-technical cooperation with Central Asian former Soviet republics.

According to the military-diplomatic source in Russia, theme derived from the transfer of surplus weapons in Afghanistan in a closed format was discussed at the end of November, Tajik and Uzbek leaders during his visit to Dushanbe and Tashkent Central Command U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Vincent Brooks. It first went on the transfer of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the high-volume devices, appliances and virtual channel intelligence, including unmanned lethal devices, digital radios, personal equipment kit, equipped with navigators JPS, armored cars, armored vehicles, air defense systems, tanks and rocket and artillery systems with the means of topographic location space, as well as small arms, equipped with night vision scopes.According to sources, the Pentagon has apparently come to the conclusion that these high-tech weapons for the Afghan army by virtue of her lack of education and sustainable relationship with the Taliban will not do.Army the same post-Soviet countries can master these weapons, apparently without problems. Note that these weapons were of U.S. and NATO Georgian forces before, in August 2011 to commit aggression against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. From all of this “advanced” list of weapons and military equipment (AME) in the Russian army now, except for a few thousand digital radios, navigation GLONASS obsolete UAV modernized (though too old) AK-74 Kalashnikov rifles and machine guns, almost nothing. And a partial re-new Russian ground troops will only IWT in 2015. It turns out that after the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, some Central Asian countries on the level and quality of their software with new weapons and military equipment will surpass the Russian army.

Initially open reaction Tajik and Uzbek leaders to offer the Brooks followed. Only a week later in the media reported that the negotiations with the representative of the Pentagon’s Defense Minister of Uzbekistan Kabul Berdiyev expressed interest in getting these kinds of weapons and military equipment. What Brooks supposedly replied: “I think there are ways to excess U.S. military equipment could benefit from Uzbekistan.”Official Dushanbe kept silent, but, according to military and diplomatic sources, their concern about the possible re-equipment of the Tajik army to NATO standards expressed, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov during a recent meeting in Moscow with Tajik counterpart Sherali Khairulloyev. Moscow once again assured the prospects of Dushanbe reduced military assistance and re-Tajik army with new weapons. Although the question of raising the rent for the use of the 201st Russian military base located in Tajikistan, remains open. This, of course, and enjoyed by Americans.

Sources say that during his visit to Tajikistan and Brooks Tashkent behind closed doors and discussed the proposals on the Pentagon building in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the basis of long-term network of training centers, where the troops of the Central Asian countries should develop their broadcast free of charge from the grouping of the alliance in Afghanistan new weapons and military equipment. Training centers – it is certainly not military bases. But it is diverted to the subject, apparently prompted a number of media publications about the reason for that Dushanbe agreed to deploy military bases in their country. The U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan is immediately denied. With Russia, when Pakistan announced the closure of the NATO supply routes through its territory, no one does not want to quarrel. But no one also can not deny the leadership of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formally announce agreement on long-term basis to have NATO bases on its territory.

According to German expert on Central Asia, Günter Knabe, this agreement, Uzbek President Islam Karimov has demonstrated during the October visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Tashkent. This conclusion is shared by the independent Uzbek political analyst Rustam Haydarov. It is no accident, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was after Clinton’s contacts with Karimov proposed to “take a decision on Uzbekistan”, which is “triple play”Подробнее:http://www.ng.ru/nvo/2011-12-05/1_pentagon.html

A few days ago announced the site WikiLeaks report of an American diplomat, who described the situation in Tajikistan and Dushanbe told about the readiness to provide the U.S. Air Force Base or other military objectives. On a sustained basis in Tajikistan is already in force supported by the U.S. training center, which is stationed in Fahrabade. According to the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan, the local law enforcement officers recently transferred to 300 sets of personal gear and equipment for special-purpose groups that American instructors are trained in Fahrabade. As noted at the ceremony, Major Lennol Absher, “since 1992, the American people have provided over 984 million dollars to support economic development, democratic institutions, health care, education and security in Tajikistan.” One can only imagine how much help will be appreciated by the U.S. and other NATO countries, if the troop grouping in Afghanistan free of charge to purposeful will transmit the modern weapons of the Tajik army. It may be worth tens of billions of dollars. For Russia, this means impossibly high

Elie, HK RIP we will for ever love you so very much

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..." - Samuel Adams

HK For EVER

RIP For Ever a HERO

Elie , RIP !

With tears in their eyes and flowers in their hands people paid tribute to their national hero. Sad at the loss, which can not be compensated yet pride was all over their faces,sacrificed their son of the soil. His was a death for a noble cause of dying for one's own country. Such men are not born everyday, they belong to the rare class of humanity, who are an example in themselves, and they are the ones who set precedents. Mr. Elie HOBEIKA, HK,is an unprecedented Leader, a Hero, and a Legend for ever.